The SESAME stand at the exhibition organized by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) as a side event of its 57th session of the General Conference held at the Agency's headquarters in Vienna from 16 to 20 September 2013 was one of 21 set up for the exhibition.
It was manned by Yasser Khalil, Administrative Director of SESAME, and Maher Attal, a Palestinian who thanks to SESAME's training programme obtained a PhD in accelerator physics at the LURE (Laboratoire pour l'Utilisation du Rayonnement Electromagnétique) synchrotron facility in France before it was decommissioned following the commissioning of the Soleil Synchrotron, also in France. Maher is now Coordinator of SESAME's microtron and machine diagnostics beamline.
Thanks to this stand, the more than 3,000 delegates from the 159 IAEA Member States, international organizations, non-governmental organizations and the media who attended the General Conference were able to able to see for themselves all that SESAME is and stands for, and to note progress in construction of the laboratory.
The IAEA has always been a strong proponent of SESAME and at the 9th SESAME Council meeting (Petra, Jordan, December 2006), it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with SESAME that set a framework for future cooperation between the two Organizations.
Through an interregional project covering the years 2007-2011, which was designed exclusively for cooperation with SESAME and set up in the framework of the MoU, the IAEA provided support to strengthen international cooperation among the Members participating in SESAME through the use of accelerator physics and synchrotron radiation applications, and granted 36 fellowships for training in forefront synchrotron radiation facilities in Europe and the USA. Fifteen of these fellowships were for on-the-job training for members of the SESAME team building the machine. Twenty-one were for the training of potential users in the SESAME region. Funding from the project was also provided for 23 expert missions related to construction of the SESAME machine thanks to which SESAME was able to benefit from the expertise of an important number of leading international experts.
Through a second interregional project set up exclusively for cooperation with SESAME, this time for the years 2012-2015, the IAEA is providing support to develop human capacity for the installation, commissioning, safe operation and utilization of the SESAME facility as an international centre of excellence for research and applications in the Middle East.
In April 2007, Mohamed ElBaradei, the then Director-General of the IAEA, visited SESAME when construction of the SESAME building was nearing completion, and the IAEA, which has hosted two of the meetings of the SESAME Council on its premises (the 10th meeting in the summer of 2007 and the 22nd meeting in May 2007), regularly participates in the Council meetings.
The General Conference is the IAEA's highest policy-making body. It is composed of representatives of all of the Agency's 159 Member States. It meets annually to consider and approve the Agency's programme and budget and to decide on other matters brought before it by the IAEA's Board of Governors, Director-General, or Member States.